Editorial January 6, 1940 Issue

"Our refuge and strength"

Duncan Sinclair

One of the most regrettable features of the present day is that many men and women lack a reasonable faith in God's power to sustain them mentally, a reliable understanding of Him which will not only bring them consolation and a measure of peace, but will also empower them to help others in need. Many today, because of this lack, are suffering mental torture as they contemplate the adverse conditions of their own lives, or allow their thought to rest on those they love who, they believe, are in danger. When strife is raging, the temptation is strong to believe that God is absent, and that it is vain to call upon Him for aid.

The fact is that the disturbed condition of the world today is in great measure due to lack of understanding of and faith in God. Had there been a knowledge of God, scientific and accurate, and had this knowledge been universal, of a certainty we should not be witnessing the opposition to religion, the curtailing of religious freedom, and the subverting of religious institutions which are apparent today. Infidelity, atheism, intolerance, and persecution are rampant, largely because they have not been adequately opposed by Christianly scientific understanding. Pure Christianity, universally lived and demonstrated, would have stemmed the tide of unbelief, with its oppression and cruelty, and prevented the outrages, the ravages, the suffering, that have horrified the higher sense of mankind.

Pure Christianity is the Christianity of Christ Jesus as Christian Science interprets it. And what is the outstanding feature of pure Christianity? It is love for God and man, love based on the understanding of God as Love, and of His infinite goodness. Jesus may not have said in so many words that "God is love," as did John, but Jesus' every word and deed implied that he was aware of the fact. He knew that God is the Father of man, the cause of man's being, and that He cares for His creation with love that is boundless; and this knowledge inspired and sustained his whole lifework. Amid all his trials, the truth of man's unity with God, the Father, supported him, and he drew continually upon that truth to heal and comfort humanity.

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